


Magari: Side Stories

by caffeineivore



Series: Magari [2]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Side Story, charlie is chaotic evil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 08:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21158696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeineivore/pseuds/caffeineivore
Summary: A collection of side stories from the Magari ficverse. Features all the other characters mentioned in the fic. Most of these can be read by themselves and each one will be tagged in the chapter title with 'ship. AU, senshi/shitennou.





	1. Airport Meeting: R/J

**Author's Note:**

> Cheer up emo fic written for CharlieChaplin2. Posted on tumblr originally. R/J, first meeting. Set a few years before Magari actually happens.

If JFK is a post-apocalyptic wasteland where manners and dreams went to die, LAX is simply a clusterfuck. Raven Fletcher isn’t stupid enough to mean-mug the smarmy-looking TSA agent at the end of the line, not exactly, but the smile in place on her face is about as gruesome as Heath Ledger’s Joker. She had the whole system down pat by now– plastic bag of toiletries, no belt, no hat, no jacket, no sunglasses, shoes that could easily be slipped off and on, no electronics and items in the pockets– but the whole process is a drag, anyway. And of course, they still always gave her crap, and this time is no exception.

“What were you doing in LA?”

“Meeting up with some clients in the industry, catching up, making plans for New York Fashion Week.”

“So you live in New York, then?”

“Yeah. I thought it says so on my license.” And moreover, she certainly didn’t sound like a Californian, now did she? 

The TSA agent gives her a warning look; her sass is clearly not appreciated, and undoubtedly he’d use it as an excuse to make her suffer in the next five to ten minutes and probably go through every last bit of her bags, down to counting how many tampons she stashed in and probably testing her makeup wipes to ensure that nothing was radioactive. Raven bites her tongue and tries not to roll her eyes as he beckons over a female officer to pat her down even as he paws through all her belongings. He shakes out a Dior dress that’s tucked into her garment bag that’s likely worth more than the X-ray machine that the bag just passed through, and Raven wants to ask that he change his damn gloves first, but at this rate, if he goes any slower, she’d miss her connection. Sunny weather or not, she’d be damned if she got stuck in LA for another day.

Finally, the ordeal comes to an end, which leaves her roughly half an hour to get from one end of the airport to the other on four-inch Louboutins. Raven has no problem with mowing through crowds– sharp elbows and the aggressive New Yorker walk does wonders– but to have to do so just to get to her gate in time is aggravating when it was certainly not her fault that the security check took so long. She certainly couldn’t just crumple up the damned Dior and stuff it back into the garment bag– she had a client dinner right after getting back in town, and on no planet did Raven Fletcher appear at such events anything less than perfectly dressed and groomed. 

There’s the moving walkway up ahead, and she strides on, a woman on a mission, long legs eating up the length of the conveyor. Raven is a petite woman, five-foot-four before the stiletto heels and too short for the modeling work that she immerses herself in dealing with on a daily basis, but she’s leggy, and can walk, jog and possibly do step aerobics in heels with the best of them. She steps off at the end of the moving walkway, leading with her shoulders, and smacks painfully into a solid male chest.

“I’m so sorry. Are you all right, miss?” A pair of big hands wrap around her elbows and pull her up, and had she landed any harder, she probably would have broken a thousand-dollar heel, and perhaps an ankle. Raven looks up from legs clad in casual gray chinos to a torso in blue tweed, with brown elbow patches, up into an almost-unforgivably handsome face, all golden California tan and tousled, sun-bleached blond hair, wearing horn-rimmed glasses over his baby blues. And… headphones. Of course. Because it would certainly be too much to ask for a man to be too perfect, so this particular specimen had to be moseying through the airport deaf to his surroundings like an oblivious moron.

“I would be better if you were watching where you were going, but forget about it.” She bypasses the hand he holds out to help her up, and snags both her garment bag and her briefcase. Her ankle gives her a twinge as she stands up, but she stalks off without a backward glance. If she hurried, she’d have just enough time to pop into the Starbucks by her gate for a quad venti iced macchiato to wash down the Excedrin before getting on the plane. 

The boarding process, after she reaches her gate, and where someone else might have passed their time sleeping or watching a movie or two on the five-hour flight, Raven opens her briefcase after the plane reaches cruising altitude to organize her files for the upcoming client dinner. Not that there is much to do, really, because Morgan Austen, even at age seventeen, didn’t exactly require much of an introduction. Blonde and willowy and charming and self-assured, the girl’s celebrity background might have gotten her in the door, but she’d certainly lived up to all the hype. Only too often were the celebrity actor-model types unforgivably uppity and spoiled, and while a small, petty part of Raven enjoyed putting them in their place as needed, it always came as a pleasant surprise when someone didn’t have to get told off for their own good. 

Her heart gives a pitter-patter, though, when she reaches inside the bag and feels, underneath her manicured fingertips, a bunch of manila folders rather than the sleek leather portfolio that should be contained in that compartment. Cautiously, she draws out the papers, then only barely manages to avoid swearing loudly and noticeably in the airplane cabin. 

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. This is a joke. A really bad joke.”

In place of the carefully-curated and prepped collection of headshots and polaroids of Morgan Austen is a collection of lab reports, all with the header of ‘153BH, UCLA/Huntley’. Raven has exactly zero interest in the subject of Nucleotide Metabolism, and the worst part about it is the fact that she has a whole three and a half hours before the plane lands and she can even get on her phone to do something about this mishap. 

It’s the longest three and a half hours of her life, feels like, and she pulls out her cell phone almost before the flight attendants turn off the seatbelt sign, calls the agency to postpone the dinner with the rep from Michael Kors.

“Yeah, there’s been a problem with my bag. Stupid LAX. Can you just… tell them my flight was delayed, or something? They’ll be a-o-fucking-kay because they’re getting Morgan Austen to walk their damn show in a month and it’ll be the biggest thing to happen to them since dude designed Michelle Obama’s official portrait dress. Thanks, Luna. You’re a whole bag of organic non-GMO peaches. And… someone’s calling, and it’s a 310 area code, so I’m going to let you go.”

She recognizes the area code as Los Angeles, of course, and expects that it’s some minion from some customer service desk in LAX reporting that they’d found her bag, but the voice which comes through is male and sounds oddly familiar, with that faint Calfornian drawl. “Am I speaking to Ms. Raven Fletcher?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“My name is Jude Huntley, and we bumped into each other at the airport? I seem to have your work bag rather than mine.” The tone is summery-smooth and apologetic, the cadence quick yet lacking the almost-harsh briskness of Manhattan. “It’s entirely my fault, and I’m going to get your bag back to you, but could you tell me where you’d like to pick it up?”

“Well, if you can’t tell, I’m kinda on the opposite coast to you now, buddy. Elite Models, New York, New York. We’re on 5th Avenue.” He doesn’t seem at all fazed by her slightly snotty tone, which takes the wind out of her sails, just a little. “Look, pal, if you want to send off my bag to New York, that’d be great. I can do the same with yours. UCLA, right? At least it’s summertime. Hopefully school’s out for you. Shitty time for me to lose my bag because summer’s prime time for campaigns, but it’s not like my stuff can just magically appear overnight.” All around her, people are rising up from their seats, and Raven scowls at nothing in particular. “I gotta get off the plane. Look, since you clearly got my number from my card, you can get the address, too. I’ll get your bag back to you as soon as I can.” 

She hangs up, and seethes from the gate all the way to the taxi stand and then all the way to her apartment, before kicking off the heels and unapologetically ordering pizza delivery, to be consumed with wine while soaking in the tub. After the day she’d had, it was the least she deserved.

**

Raven arrives at the agency at eight o’clock sharp the next morning, with the briefcase-that-is-not-hers in one hand, a giant to-go cup of coffee in the other, and spends the first hour of her day making a phone call to the reps at Michael Kors to explain her bag mishap and reschedule the dinner meeting. Thankfully, Morgan Austen’s name is enough to negate any wrath which might have been incurred at the inconvenience, and, crisis averted, she’s just about ready to schedule a conference call– with a talent scout out in BFE, Cornfields, Small-town USA somewhere-or-another– when her assistant Phoebe knocks on the door. The diminuitive brunette has a peculiar look in her beady eyes.

“Someone’s here to see you. No appointment. Great face but I doubt he’s a model, unless he’s doing some sort of ad for Geek Chic. Says his name is Jude. Do you know a Jude? I didn’t think you knew a Jude, though this guy’s sort of got the hot younger Jude Law thing going on so…”

Raven’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. She’s only made the acquaintance of one individual by that name, and certainly Phoebe is wrong. There is no freaking way that the man from the airport in Los Angeles was _actually_ in New York at this very second. She waves in a vague manner at Phoebe, who takes it as assent to let him in, and then her jaw drops. It’s the man from the airport, all right. Still wearing his tweed jacket and his horn-rimmed glasses, but now sporting dark-blond five-o’clock shadow like gold dust smudged against his chiseled jaw and deep shadows under those blue eyes. But his lips quirk into a smile when he sees her, and he holds out her bag, like an olive branch.

“You asked for it to be overnighted, didn’t you? I took the red-eye over.”

“But— but—_why_?” Flying a red-eye from coast to coast is the worst, and doing so on standby just seemed like her own idea of Hell on Earth. “You could’ve just dropped it off at a FedEx. I…” She had barely been civil to him on the phone, and definitely was on the wrong side of rude when they’d bumped into each other at the airport. Under no circumstance could Raven see a reason for a man– especially one who looked as though he had a job and a life well on the other side of the country– to drop everything just to bring her her bag back in person. 

But rather than give her a hard time, the man named Jude smiles, and it’s a great smile, with a dimple in both cheeks and in the chin. Geek chic indeed… “Well, I need those lab reports back, too. Summer class. I have a commitment to my students to get it back to them by Friday, and they’re kind of time consuming to grade. Call it an impulse, I guess.” He’s still holding out her bag, and this time she takes it, and belatedly hands him his own. “Anyway, let’s start over again. My name is Jude Huntley, and I’m an assistant professor at UCLA’s Chemistry department.”

“Raven Fletcher. I’m an agent here at Elite Models. Nice to meet you.” Two almost-identical bags switch hands, just before his fingers close around hers, and the touch is warm and sharp with the brush of static electricity. Raven’s fairly sure that her spine is, metaphorically speaking, stainless steel. And yet a shiver works its way up and down as he holds on for just a moment too long, and a decidedly unfamiliar warmth creeps up into her cheeks as he smiles at her again. 

“The pleasure is definitely all mine.”


	2. A Drink And A Dance: R/J

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows the last chapter. Dedicated to Charlie and BAMF. R/J.

The 18th Room is sleek yet dim, echoing the air of mystery surrounding Prohibition-era speakeasies but featuring all the modern amenities one would expect out of a trendy spot in New York City. Raven arrives at nine o’clock on the dot, because ‘fashionably late’ does not apply to everyday standards of etiquette, and furthermore, one does not turn up late on a reservation in Manhattan if one actually wanted to be able to enjoy one’s drink and food for that night. She’d offered to buy the UCLA professor, Jude Huntley, a drink for returning her bag in person, of course, and had given him the address to meet her up there that evening.

“Hello.” She hears his voice, warm and slightly gravelly, sound behind her, and turns to see the Good Professor, looking a bit less nerdy shaven and without the elbow patches, smiling at her. Weirdly, though the white shirt and dark gray blazer are certainly more appropriate night-out apparel, she thinks the look from earlier in the day had suited him more. He still wore the glasses, though, and the low lighting of the place glint off the lenses, shine brilliantly in his blue eyes. 

“You made it. Good. They have custom drinks here based on what you like, and pretty good food.” It’s a bit of an abrupt greeting, but Raven isn’t quite sure what to make of Dr. Huntley and his actual presence in New York City for apparently no other purpose than to return her bag. When in doubt in dealings with the male of the species, toughness was always a good default to fall back on. 

“It’s definitely some very cool digs. I can’t say that bars back at home look much like this. Like something out of an old movie, almost.” 

They get seated, and both of them opt for the custom-made cocktails. Raven gets a smokey-sweet Scotch concoction with ginger beer and Angostura bitters, and Jude opts for something with gin and an orange twist. They share some small plates, and of course when Jude asks her about her day, she is not surprised. These are normal pleasantries, and no one truly wanted to pass a cocktail hour in awkward silence, but he leans forward and listens as though he actually cares, and that’s a bit more off-putting.

“Morgan Austen? You were negotiating a contract with her? No wonder you wanted to kill me for grabbing your bag by accident.” His smile, even apologetically full of chagrin, is lethal. “I can’t say that I’m hugely in favour of starting kids out young in the entertainment industry, but she seems surprisingly well adjusted whenever we see or hear her on the news.”

“She was born for this, and as exploitative as the industry can be, she’s got a good head on her shoulders, and I definitely don’t just mean all that shampoo-commercial blonde hair.” Raven’s mouth firms, and she squares her shoulders. “She’s a good kid, weird unorthodox Hollywood upbringing aside. Nothing’s about to happen to her if I have anything to say about it.”

“I understand what you mean.” There’s not even a hint of a patronizing tone in his voice, just simple understanding. “I can’t say that I get to know every single student who enters my lecture hall, but you always get to meet some, and you always hope that whatever they learn from you academically aside, they’ll remember you as a positive figure in their development as young adults. I know full well not all of them will go into a Chemistry-related field, but I hope no one hates me or my class, all the same.”

“Aren’t you going to be exhausted, going to your class tomorrow after flying in all the way from here?” That still didn’t make sense– the fact that he’d crossed the entire continental United States to return her bag. Not that she was ungrateful, of course. Or that she was hating this time and conversation right now. Jude Huntley might be a virtual stranger whose life intersected with hers in the most random of ways, but he was… nice. In such a low-key, easygoing type of way that it lowered even her fierce defenses. 

“Well, LA’s three hours behind, so it will still be early enough in the day by the time I get there that I’ll have a few hours to rest before having to stand in front of a bunch of grad students and talk about metabolism. And besides, I’ll have plenty of time to grade the rest of those lab reports on the trip back. There’s not exactly much to do on the plane, otherwise. I’ve already gotten a head start on them earlier today, before meeting up with you.”

That has her chuckling despite herself. “You’re in New York City and not during the tourist-mad seasons of Christmas or whatever and you’re holed up in your hotel room grading lab reports? You could’ve done a bunch of other stuff for fun.”

“I could’ve, but it’s no fun doing the touristy thing alone. I don’t exactly know anyone here aside from you, and I can barely claim that acquaintance, either, could I?”

“I don’t know, I don’t usually meet people up for drinks unless it’s somehow work-related. There are almost always too many fucking people, everywhere. At least it’s not a Friday afternoon happy hour in the Financial District. Banker Bro’s probably have a whole level to themselves in Hell waiting for them someday.” 

“Well in that case, I’m definitely flattered, and honoured.”

Their food comes, and it’s undoubtedly his relaxed, no-pressure manner that makes her linger over her Scotch and stuffed zucchini flowers and the easy flow of conversation. Jude– and since when did she start thinking of him by his first name on such short acquaintance?– had been born and raised in California, though he’d lived in the Bay Area before moving out to SoCal for school, then work. They talked about some of the more problematic youngsters they’d had to deal with in their respective jobs, as well as the merits of the dollar slice vs. the daily special off the taco truck. Raven’s a diehard bagels and lox and coffee for breakfast type of girl, and declared smoothies and avocado toast to be faddish and overrated even if a great deal of the models booked with the agency seemed to enjoy them. Jude laughs and admits that he’s not much of a green juice sort of guy himself, but claims that the mythical long lines at In-n-Out are worth it.

At some point during their conversation, some of the other patrons start dancing to the jazz music playing in the background. It is definitely not the sort of place most people out on a date night would expect to dance– no grinding, or DJ’s, or top 40′s here. The music’s something from the Gatsby era, and tastefully muted so that conversations at the tables and bar could still be conducted without leaning in and shouting. After a handful of sets, Jude holds out his hand, one blond eyebrow slightly cocked, and gives her that should-totally-be-illegalized smile again. 

“I feel like I should ask you to dance. Of course, you can say no if you don’t want to.”

She’d consider this a _move_, coming from anyone else, probably. And it could very well be one. And really, she has utterly no business encouraging any moves from anybody on a weekday night, and certainly not some Chemistry professor who lived three time zones and close to three thousand miles away, here only for a night, and really not supposed to be here at that. But she can’t seem to summon up the resistance to that smile and those baby blues and the way he listens as much as he talks, and lets her hand land on his, palm to palm, let their fingers twine together. His hands are big and warm and a bit calloused– rougher than she’d expect from some geeky science type– and somewhere, deep inside her chest, her heart thumps out of rhythm and her consciousness whispers, almost self-deprecatingly, “_Oh, shit_.”


	3. Hollywood: M/K

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gift for Vchanny. M/K, longer than the previous two because it spans several years. Rated a strong PG13 for sexual situations and a hint of violence.

The flashbulbs and paparazzi harassment she took as a fair trade– a necessary evil for her background as well as her chosen profession. Even the gossipy tabloid stories, or anonymous, hurtful online comments and speculation. Morgan, having seen many a child actor and teen starlet fall from grace, stays out of the spotlight for the most part. No drugs, no inappropriate videos or pictures, no information on her personal life for the avid army of vultures online to devour and speculate over. It isn’t too difficult avoiding the paparazzi, either, when one lived in a Beverly Hills mansion surrounded by electronic gates and a dense circle of tall hedges, or when one was a minor working under the very protective wing of one Raven Huntley, nee Fletcher, whom Morgan was fairly sure could scare an armed robber into submission with little else than a scathing comment and a well-placed glare. Her agent was a nice lady, the way a fire-breathing dragon might have a soft underbelly, but it was well hidden under a generous layer of diamond-hard New York City sharpness. 

The lack of privacy and the intrusive nature of the general public did not become an issue until she’d turned eighteen, and well on the international fashion circuit. The pretty hotels in Milan and Paris, picturesque though they certainly were, offered little protection against the outside world. The first time that she’d gotten manhandled by a particularly determined and sleazy paparazzo, she’d been eighteen. Raven had none-too-gently yanked the man off of her and driven the business end of her stiletto heel into the man’s instep before getting in his face and letting out a blistering diatribe lavishly peppered with F-bombs. The paparazzo had backed off, but Raven had ushered Morgan up to her room, barged in after her, and unplugged all electronic devices before making a sweep and checking for anything out of place. Whatever she might have thought of the incident, she did not say to Morgan at that particular moment, but she already had her phone to her ear before she’d even left the room with stern injunctions not to order room service, go online, or let anyone in that she didn’t know.

Whatever arrangements Raven must have made that night, Morgan had woken up three days later to a knock on the door. One glance through the peephole revealed her agent, and a tall stranger wearing a plain black suit. 

Raven let herself in when she opened the door, but the man stood there for a moment, looking down the hall in what Morgan deemed to be an assessing sort of way before following Raven in and shutting the door behind him, taking the time to secure the chain latch as well as the lock. He was almost a head taller than Morgan’s willowy five-foot-nine, with wide shoulders and big hands, but what drew Morgan’s attention right away was his face, all watchful gray eyes and an impassive mouth and strong features, quite a departure from the fresh-faced, pretty male models she worked with on a regular basis. He had a square jaw and blond hair so pale it was close to silver, and a hint of an old break in an otherwise patrician nose saved him from being almost too handsome. 

“Morgan, this is Kane Wallace. Kane, this is Morgan Austen. I’ve known him since we were kids, before our paths veered in completely different directions. He works for a security firm out of Manhattan these days, but I figure this would be a nice change of scene for him, and there’s no one I’d trust more. You need a security detail, and someone who’d not only be able to make sure no one gets to you out in public, but won’t sell you out to the top buyer, if you get my drift. Kane’s mom and my dad were in law school together, back in the day, and we pretty much grew up in the same circles. He went to West Point and I went to Columbia, and we lost touch for a while, but… here we are, and here we go.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Austen.”

He has a deep, measured voice, and wherever he might have been between West Point and a boutique Parisian hotel, he’d lost the New Yorker accent that still rang, sharp as a chime, in Raven’s voice. Morgan smiles, and offers her hand, and his fingers are rough and warm against hers. 

“You can just call me Morgan. If we’re to work together, we should be on easy terms. May I call you Kane, or do you prefer Mr. Wallace?”

“Kane is fine, Miss Austen.”

Morgan’s quite sure that he caught the eye roll she’d given Raven at that, but Kane doesn’t say anything, and if she’d have known that fateful meeting would ultimately change the whole course of her life, perhaps she would have been more nervous, or excited. But at the age of eighteen, the supermodel daughter of a Hollywood A-Lister, meeting a man who’d become her security detail was nothing more or less than just a matter of course, a fact of life. So she’d mustered up her cheekiest grin, tilted her head to the side, and beamed up at him with all the power of a megawatt heat lamp. “Well, hopefully this is the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship, Beefcake. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

He didn’t so much as crack a smile in response.

**

“Awww. I just got a text from Zack. Him and Noah just landed at Heathrow.”

“That’s good. I’m glad they made it safely to their destination.” 

“Don’t you think it’s romantic, Beefcake? This grand gesture he’s doing, this love at first sight thing. I really hope it pans out for our boy.”

“I’m sure he’s happy to have you in his corner, Miss Austen.”

It’s been five years, two months and ten days, and perhaps three hours since Morgan had first met Kane Wallace, and if that made her a bit like the one girl in Love Actually, she’s resigned to the fact. Kane does know that she exists, of course. But the chances of anything, even a hot makeout session that amounts to nothing, ultimately, are probably even slimmer. She’s turning twenty-four in six days, and he still calls her Miss Austen at least fifty percent of the time, and it would probably be infuriating if that buttoned-up propriety wasn’t such an intrinsic part of his disposition that it’d be a bit hard to it wouldn’t be fair to take it personally. She can’t help but needle him a bit, though. Certainly no one else would have the nerve to call him something so ridiculous as Beefcake to his face. 

They have fallen into a comfortable routine at this point– he’s never far, whether she’s home or out, in LA or Milan or some picturesque tropical beach for a photoshoot. She has a sometimes-brutal schedule, going between sessions with the personal trainer and photoshoots and fittings and interviews, making the necessary appearances at the necessary well-publicised premieres and galas. He’s always in the background, as unobtrusive as a broad-shouldered, six-foot-three man wearing a dark suit and an earpiece could possibly be, and if he’s ever felt that the long days and the jet lag wore on him in any way, he certainly never says so. The one time, perhaps two years ago, that Morgan had apologized about a particularly long and strenuous photoshoot, he’d simply said that military training had prepared him for a lot worse, and then managed to somehow find her a Döner kebab stand still open despite the late hour. It wasn’t quite LA taco truck fare, but at midnight, still fighting jet lag and after a day of Luna bars and low-cal Vitamin Water in between grueling costume and makeup changes, it had been the best thing she’d ever tasted. 

And if she’s come to depend on him in far more than just as hired muscle to get rid of creepy paparazzi or overly-enthusiastic fans, or if she finds herself thinking about him in ways that aren’t at all professional, that’s no one’s business or problem but her own. 

She smiles up at him, wondering if he knows– notices– that it’s not quite the same smile that she always gives the cameras and the reporters and the fans, not even the same smile that she reserves for friends like Zack or Noah. “At least it will be an easy day for us today. Just one appointment. Ace Kato has a waiting list the length of my leg of models who want in on his photoshoots. I’m honestly shocked that he picked me out of the pile.”

He glances down, just for the space of a second, at her comment, from the bottom hem of her breezy yellow skirt to the no-nonsense red pedicure on her toes, but when he looks up again, he’s not smiling. “I’ll be right outside the studio door if you need me.”

**

The ‘easy day’ ends in disaster in very short order, after Kato corners her in the dressing room between costume changes and puts his hands on her naked back, all while smarmily whispering against her neck that he could take her career to new, astronomical heights, if she’d meet him halfway. The insinuation is obvious, and the slap Morgan delivers to his face is reflexive and shocks her as much as him. A moment later, Kane is in the room– Morgan doesn’t even have time to wonder how, precisely, he made it through the electronically-locked door– and pulling the photographer off of her the way a wolf might drag off a deer by its neck. It’s a blur after that, sort of– somehow, she’s bundled up into the back of her driver’s car, and Raven, not a cuddler by any stretch of the imagination, is holding onto her the way a protective mother might soothe an injured baby chick, smoothing down her hair with one manicured hand even as she barked into her phone, clearly on the line with the agency’s in-house counsel. 

“It’ll be a settlement, probably. No one wants to drag this through a courtroom shit show. But as of this minute, no one in any of our offices will work with him ever again. It’s doubtful that he’ll press charges, even if Kane did break his jaw while pulling him off of you. I’m cancelling your appointments for the rest of the week.”

Morgan holds it together all the way home, waves off her assistant and the housekeeper and even her mother, all of whom have heard some heavily edited but possibly exaggerated version of what had gone down, and goes for a bubble bath complete with candles and wine, and it’s only after she’s bundled up in her robe alone in her room, skin pruney from the too-hot water and hair a wet and tangled mess over pillowcases meant for dry-cleaning only that it hits her. And with his usual quietly uncanny timing, Kane knocks on the door, and even as she opens it, she smells the distinct scent of fresh Animal-style In-n-Out fries– her favourite comfort food as a child– and that’s when the tears come. 

Without any question, the housekeeper will have something awful to say the next morning about greasy fries on the furniture, but neither of them are worried about that at the moment, and though it takes perhaps a minute or two, Kane eventually steps forward instead of back, and certainly she’s looking her worst just then– wet and bedraggled, without a speck of makeup, wearing nothing but a fuzzy pink bathrobe. She’s also undoubtedly getting tears and snot on his shirt, but for a man of few words who rarely even smiles, his arms are strong and gentle just as she’d always imagined, and the rumble of his breathing and heartbeat, steady and low beneath her cheek, is what finally calms her down. Her hands are clenched around handfuls of his shirt and he sits her down on the bed, brings her the now-cold fries, and makes her eat them, not stepping back until she manages a ghost of a smile. 

“Raven said you broke his jaw.” Her voice is slightly scratchy around a mouthful of messy sauce and potato. An ominous glint enters Kane’s eye, and he raises his chin.

“Might have. Would’ve done worse, too, if I had to.”

“I know.” He doesn’t speak much on his background, though he’d mentioned before that he had decided against making a career out of the military due to a dislike of politics and killing people on the orders of people with selfish motives. Nonetheless, if nothing else, she knows that Raven would not have appointed him to this role were he not anything less than completely capable, and in this case, capable might as well have meant deadly. Kane still walks like a soldier, and scans a room and its occupants the way an officer might, and in those last few moments, the arms that had held her had been hard and solid as steel. “This is so hard.”

His jaw clenches, and he looks down at the spotless plush carpet underneath their feet. “You’re entitled to whatever measures you must take to recover and heal. I’m sorry I wasn’t there, earlier.”

He couldn’t have been there any earlier unless he’d had superpowers and teleported into the room. As it stands, Morgan’s still fairly sure he’d broken down the door, but she wasn’t even referring to that, at least not completely. She laughs, but it’s a hollow, almost desperate sound. “Kato’s a creep who will get his ass sued and blackballed, but he’s just one of many creeps in the world. I’m not going to let a creep ruin anything more than one day out of my life. But it’s so hard to be around you and act normal and not like I’ve been trying to fall out of love with you for the last few years, because I can act normal around you, unlike everyone else, and you don’t care if I’m looking pretty or acting charming or if I’m a mess, and you’re the only one who always knows what I need. And I have no business even having this conversation with you. It’s not fair, and I’d be no better than Kato, using his position to coerce something out of another person.”

His breath escapes in a stutter, and Morgan doesn’t have it in her, just at that moment, to look up into his face, see consternation in those usually-unflappable features, or hear any hasty apologies. This, too, shall pass. She is Morgan Grace Austen, born and bred to handle anything life threw her way with a perfect smile on her face, and she’s already cried once today in his presence. It takes every bit of practiced poise she can muster, but she manages to square her shoulders, turn away with her head held high. “I’d like to be alone, now. Please. I will be quite safe.”

He doesn’t make a sound, exiting the room and shutting the door behind him, but the solitude of her space without him in it weighs in the air like the gloom before a cold rain.

**

One can almost always find the strength to carry on, and moreover, this day had been inevitable since the day they’d first met, all those years ago. Morgan finds herself able, after a sleepless night and a day of avoidance, to act almost normal again around him. She’s cordial, and so is he, and both of them cautiously never mention the incident, and if he notices that she is careful not to needle him or call him Beefcake or touch him in any way, he doesn’t remark upon it. But she feels the weight of his eyes on her, always watchful and protective but hotter, heavier somehow at odd moments. She throws herself into work and gets a contract as the spokesmodel for an up-and-coming cruelty-free cosmetics brand, and shoots a series of PSAs against bullying in schools and online. Her twenty-fourth birthday comes and goes without much fanfare, though she throws the expected no-expenses-spared party for the occasion, inviting along a few dozen of the most tolerable and non-problematic of the glitterati for an evening of champagne and fancy finger foods in an exclusive club. Heavy security keep out enterprising paparazzi, but Morgan does select and sell one carefully-taken group selfie to People Magazine and arrange to donate the proceeds to a charity benefiting victims of sexual assault. 

True to Raven’s predictions, Ace Kato settles out of court, and though no details of the case are leaked, his demand and popularity as a fashion and celebrity photographer seem to vanish almost overnight. Raven makes a few scathing comments that he would soon be leaving town in disgrace and perhaps end up taking baby pictures in a Sears somewhere. 

The new year comes and brings with it the usual flurry of activity in Hollywood as Awards season kicks off and the deep, intellectual films of the winter months– a far cry from the CGI-and-explosions-laden summer blockbusters– have their premieres. 

Kane takes a week around Christmas as personal time, and travels off to some unknown destination, returning the day after New Year’s preoccupied and morose, though still impeccably polite and considerate and thorough. Morgan lets it go for all of two days before she corners him, and plainly asks him what is wrong.

He hedges, and looks down at his phone, and Morgan knows that she’s pouting by that point and doesn’t care. “You know everything there is to know about me, Beefcake. Down to how much Chipotle I scarf down every time Shark Week rolls around and how much I secretly hate Pilates to the fact that I still can’t watch The Lion King without crying. You can tell me what’s wrong with you for a change. Give me something to do to help.” He’s wearing a cotton t-shirt rather than the usual perfectly pressed button-down underneath a suit jacket, and of their own volition, her fingers curl into the soft cloth, wrinkling it. “Let me in. Please.”

He wraps his hands around her slim wrists, wide palms warm and calloused against her skin, but doesn’t pull her hands off of him, and acquiesces.

**

C’est La Vie is the type of arthouse film with a limited release, produced by some bigshot actor and featuring the usual dichotomy of virtual unknowns in leading roles and cinematography dreamy and lush as a French Impressionist painting. Morgan does not generally attend these premieres– they inevitably run late, and she unfailingly gets cornered by either pretentious auteurs looking for a Muse du jour or well-meaning but nosy pillars of the industry from her mother’s generation, at least as inquisitive about her personal life as the most determined of the paparazzi, and more likely to be closer to the mark with it. But this evening is, as she admits to herself, a labour of love.

The gown that she has on is golden silk, Yves Ste. Laurent couture, and she’s got a good ten carats of yellow diamonds dangling on her neck and ears. But the question that Morgan gets asked the most, down the stroll of this red carpet, is who is the frail old lady there with her, hooked up on oxygen and being pushed in a wheelchair? 

“She’s a friend of a friend, and she’s never been to Hollywood before.” She gives the answer with a warm smile for the cameras, and though she’s certainly wearing impractical shoes for the occasion and her entourage is not far off, she pushes the wheelchair the whole way herself, bending down periodically to make sure that the occupant– Kane’s grandmother, Doris, is comfortable. 

There’d been a lot of strings to pull, important people in the industry to sweet-talk, but ultimately, Morgan had prevailed in her goal. They’re seated quite close to the front, and on Doris’ other side is a legend, recognizable even though his black tie differs quite a bit from the rugged garments he’d worn in some of his most famous roles.

“My, my, aren’t you Mister Harrison Ford?” Doris whispers, the blush on her papery cheeks as charming as a schoolgirl’s. “You were my favourite, when I was younger. That Han Solo was such a dashing rapscallion.”

“Why, yes I am.” Harrison winks over Doris’ head at Morgan; this seating arrangement had been cleared with his people well in advance of this evening, and comes as no surprise. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

The movie premiere is surprisingly enjoyable, and by the end of the evening, Doris has opened up to the actor and the two are chatting away like old friends. They don’t attend any after-parties, but Morgan pours Doris a half-glass of Dom Perignon and toasts her happiness, and at a perfectly decent hour, takes Doris back home. The private plane will take Doris, in the end stages of heart failure, back to Upstate New York in the morning, to begin hospice care. 

The limo ride back is mostly quiet, and for a moment, Morgan thinks that Doris might have fallen asleep, but Kane’s grandmother coughs, then looks at her with eyes that might have gone rheumy and soft with age but are the same shade of gray as her grandson’s. “You’re a nice young lady, Miss Austen. I can see why he loves you so.”

Morgan can smile and laugh on command, but she can’t control the quick gasp, the heat creeping up her neck and face. “He’s become… a friend. We’ve known each other for six years now. But surely you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not worried about hospice care, much as Kane might fret over it. It will be peaceful, you see. I’m hoping to live long enough to watch the leaves change colour– sorry, dear, but California autumns have nothing on the East Coast, but if that isn’t meant to be, I’ll be seeing Kane’s grandfather again soon. He looks just like my husband did when he was young, too, though Calvin’s eyes were green. He’s a good boy.” Doris reaches across the aisle of the limo, pats the back of Morgan’s hand with her quavery fingertips. “I’m glad that he won’t be alone. He’s always been such an independent boy, but it doesn’t do for one to have no one to share their hearts and lives with.”

**

Doris leaves the next day, and Kane goes with her, and though Morgan throws herself into work for the next four days, his absence feels like a void in the center of her world. She wraps up some ad-work for the cosmetic brand, makes a brief appearance on one of the late shows. Needless to say, in the space of a five-minute interview, she gets questioned about her unusual guest to the movie premiere, but she keeps it simple, stating that it’s a friend of a friend, shamelessly invoking Harrison Ford and stating to the host, charmingly, that certainly many women would love to meet Han Solo and Indiana Jones himself before they passed, and she couldn’t blame her friend one bit. Of course, as is expected, the host segues into asking her about her own love life, and Morgan simply smiles. 

“Of course I love somebody. I love a lot of people. For a lifestyle and a career that could be built out of artifice, I feel like I am blessed to know some of the best people, as friends, or colleagues, or associates. I am the luckiest girl in the world, and it has absolutely everything to do with the people I love, and not my work or my connections.” Somehow, she knows that Kane will watch this segment, though he is hundreds of miles away, and the smile she aims for the camera is the one she generally reserves for him, alone. 

She arrives home from that studio appearance the same day as Kane, though he flies commercial and lands a good two hours after her. She’s slightly jet-lagged, and relaxing in her wing of the house in her pajamas when he comes in, looking far too good for someone who’s just left a loved one to their final rest and flown from coast to coast. Morgan clasps her hands together so they don’t reach for him, but just for a moment, after he greets her– Morgan, for once, and not Miss Austen– his eyes soften almost imperceptibly, and that alone gives her the courage to clear the air.

“I owe you an apology, I think.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Why would you say that?” 

“Because… I promised myself, long ago, before I met you, that I would never take advantage of anyone who worked for me in any capacity. That I wouldn’t overstep my bounds, either in thought or action, because so many people do, and get away with it, and that’s just not fair.” She has to be honest with him– he deserves no less than the complete truth, and if her smile is shaky at the corners, she at least still manages to look him in the eye. “I can’t not love you. It’s not possible. But I won’t do anything out of line. You have my word, and I’m a woman of my word.”

“I know.” He steps closer, almost too close. He smells fresh, not at all like someone who had just been sitting in a tin can breathing recycled air for hours. “I’m generally a man of my word, too. But I think I’m about to break it.”

Before she can asks him what he means, he reaches for her, and takes her hands in his. Her hands are slim and dainty, currently sporting a shimmery pink manicure and a Pandora bracelet. His are tanned and wide, with rough palms and a utilitarian black watch, and his fingers are warm wrapped around hers. “I promised myself, when I took on this job, that I’d never touch you. That I would never even think to put my hands on you, or behave in any way that could be construed as unprofessional.” He tugs her in, then lets go of her left hand to cup her cheek, and she’s almost close enough to count his eyelashes one by one, and her breath catches somewhere between her throat and her lips. “I’m about to break that promise. And, speaking of, I quit.”

Before she can say anything in response, his mouth is on hers, and he doesn’t kiss her in the gentle, easygoing way of a casual but enjoyable date. He hauls her in, lifting her slightly off her feet as his lips all but devour hers, as though she’s his air and water, one hand cupping her nape as the other anchors at the base of her spine. She feels herself moan, but the sound of it is blushingly wanton in the quiet of the room even as she sinks her fingers into his shockingly soft hair. 

It could have stopped there, maybe, if this hasn’t been building for so long, so intensely. But neither of them seem capable of letting the other person go. She goes for his shirt buttons first, ripping one off in awkward frustration as her nails get in the way, but then he laughs and lifts her up and carries her into her room, kicking the door shut behind them between more kisses– on her lips, tracing a path from her jaw and down the length of her neck. Her own bed feels new somehow when he joins her on it, but he doesn’t touch her until she reaches up and kisses him again. She knows that he knows that she’s never slept with anyone before, and yet, after sharing everything else in the last six years, it doesn’t even feel awkward when he slides the last few pieces of clothing off her shoulders and legs. Morgan’s not self-conscious as a rule– certainly, in the name of fashion, she’s been photographed wearing some fairly risque pieces before, often in the company of strangers, but she finds herself looking up into his face timidly as his eyes rake over the length of her, from the blonde hair fanned out over her pillows to the toes curling into the sheets. 

“God. You’re the most fucking beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.” His words are blunt and a bit abrupt, but it coaxes a smile out of her, and then his mouth and hands are wandering over her bare skin, and there’s no time to overthink it any more. 

Much later, as night falls over Los Angeles, Morgan cuddles into his side, feeling slightly sleepy and warm and very, very loved. “You quit, hmm, Beefcake?” It should feel awkward to tease him when she might have possibly squealed his name at an inopportune moment in the recent past, but then again, she’s never felt more safe or comfortable than when they’re together, so maybe things hadn’t changed so much, after all. “I guess you must, for the sake of both our reputations.”

“I quit working for you. I’ll never quit protecting you, whether or not I get paid to do so. I can do remote work on security systems or whatever. That’s all just details to figure out.” He tugs her close and runs his fingers down the length of her bare back, and she leans into the touch like a cat. “Go to sleep. We can figure this out in the morning.”

“Mmm. You’re warm. You don’t snore or talk in your sleep, do you?”

“If I do, too bad. You’re stuck with me.” He presses a soft kiss to her temple and tugs the covers up over them. “I love you, Morgan Austen. I figure now’s the time to finally say it aloud.”

She feels her mouth curve into a smile against the skin of his shoulder. “I love you too, Beefcake. And now’s the perfect time.”

He doesn’t snore or talk in his sleep, but he doesn’t let go of her all night, and he’s still holding her close when she wakes up in the morning. Morgan opens one eye, texts her assistant to cancel her hair appointment, and curls back up into his arms. Today, she’s sleeping in.


	4. A Boy And A Girl Walk Into A Bar...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to my fantastic beta for this year's senshi/shitennou minibang-- the one and only Satine86. M/N with mentions of A/Z.

The atmosphere of the pub is dim and low-key, with wood panelling and a pleasant sort of unpretentiousness, and though Noah doesn’t consider himself a soccer fan, he makes himself comfortable amidst the group currently watching the game on the television screen. Zack, who could only have been more besotted had he actually been the hero of a fluffy teenage rom-com from the ‘90s or early ‘00s, possibly played by a young Freddie Prinze Jr., had left with Amy a few hours ago. Dinner with her mother. And if that wasn’t super extra serious for a guy who’d met a girl two years ago and spent all of three days with her…

But then again, Zack, despite being generally easygoing in that amiable midwestern way, could not be swayed from his path once he’d made up his mind, and his mind was apparently made up. Certainly it was serious enough for him to buy a plane ticket, book a hotel, and travel across an ocean to find this girl again. Noah had come along to keep him out of trouble, of course, and also to be able to say that he’d been to Europe.

The weather, of course, leaves something to be desired. And no one knew a damn thing about football– oh, excuse him, AMERICAN football. Not the David Beckham stuff. But the beer, he had to admit, was superior. Europeans knew their way around a damn brew.

“Oy! What are you doing here?”

Noah swivels his head over in the direction of the shout, and grins. Even a borderline-rude question like that sounds sexy as hell in that Irish accent of hers. Amy’s roommate is tall and stacked in the best of ways, a stunner from the top of her curly head to the bottom of her boot-clad feet. “Oh, hey. Just chilling. Grabbing a beer and a bite to eat, since this is walking distance from the hotel. Zack’s hanging out with Amy, but I’m sure you already knew that.”

“I did.” Mary Kathleen takes a seat across from him, and he sort of appreciates the directness of it rather than a dance-around asking for permission to sit as though she had any less right to be there than he did. “I had to coax the story out of her last night, but I’d known something was different. She’s always been a quiet girl, but she’d come back from summer hols two years ago and I’d just known something had happened. Nothing bad, but just significant, all the same. She’s never been the sort to pine after a lad, you know. Too sensible, by far. But she’s happy to see him, still. Quite happy indeed.”

“Oh, they’re adorable together, and he’s a lovesick puppy, and someday, I have a feeling you and I will be Maid of Honour and Best Man, respectively, at their wedding,” Noah quips, only half-joking. “I’d heard the story, of course, from Morgan. She was sort of there in Italy when it happened, and was probably the first witness to their storybook romance. She’ll be happy that it worked out, I’m sure, and that your friend didn’t have to call security to throw my friend out.”

“‘Tis funny to hear you talking about one of the most famous supermodels in the world like she’s just another bird, though I suppose to you lot she would be.”

“Morgan’s pretty down-to-Earth for being who and what she is. But Zack and I are also not as deep into this whole business as she is.” Noah finishes his beer, then playfully flexes his biceps. “I’m surprised you recognized me, actually. The, uh, picture on that cover has my face in profile.” The picture in question also had most of his chest bare aside from a tartan covering only a small area for modesty. Noah doesn’t remember too much else about the book in question aside from it being set in the Scottish highlands in the Middle Ages and was quite popular with its target audience. Lots of bodice-ripping, undoubtedly, by Laird Carmichael of the shirtless tartan fame.

“It’s the hair, and the pecs.” Unapologetically, Mary Kathleen taps a knuckle on his chest and grins, even as the barman brings her her own beer. “‘Twas not a bad look for you a’tall.”

“Thanks. You saying so makes the several hours spent with baby oil covering all exposed skin on my body worth it.”

She laughs– a full-on, belly laugh, not a girly giggle, and orders some food. He joins her and does the same.

**

Three or four beers later, they’re both tipsy, and jolly, and embroiled in a friendly debate over local foods from both their hometowns. Noah tries to explain exactly what a chimichanga is, and he’s not quite sure that he’s successful, but he does agree that as mildly horrifying as a Scotch egg looks at first sight, it’s pretty damn good. And much to his relief, Mary Kathleen does not seem like the depressing sort of girl who’d order a garden salad, dressing on the side, for dinner and then look mournful and hungry for the rest of the evening.

They talk, mostly about school, though also about their friends. Mary Kathleen majored in Electrical Engineering, and there’s enough commonality with his own major, Physics, that there’s room for shared stories about uppity TA’s and labs and the like. They’re both far from home– she’s originally from a tiny village called Carran, in County Clare, before she’d moved to London at the age of fifteen. He’d lived in Sedona, Arizona until moving to New York City for school and work, and both of them agreed that the crowded, busy, big-city life was not for them.

They eventually leave the pub together, and she walks with him back to his hotel. He pulls out his phone at the door, and gives her his best smile. “So that was fun.”

“It was. I wonder if our friends are back yet? Amy’s not really the sort to do anything naughty, but he is awfully pretty. And there’s that whole pent-up two-years’-worth-of-longing.”

“Zack’s not the type to do anything naughty either, nor the type to pressure a girl into it if you were worried about that. He’s surrounded by beautiful women all the damn time in modeling, and sees enough sleazy shit to never want to go that route, himself. He’ll never do anything to hurt your friend if he can help it, and that’s even if he weren’t besotted, which he totally is.”

“That’s good to know.” Mary Kathleen relaxes fractionally, and Noah knows, without her saying so, that the reassurance assuages a protective streak within her. She doesn’t comment on it, though, and instead holds out a hand for him to shake. “You’re not bad company, for a Yank obsessed with Mexican food.”

“Nor are you, for an Irish girl obsessed with half-naked Scotsmen,” he returns, taking her hand in his and holding on. “So since we’re now buddies and I’m not an idiot like Zack, do you have a phone number or email or Facebook or something? You know, so we can keep in touch and gossip about our friends and all that.”

That gets another one of those wide, cheeky grins. “If I give that to you, am I going to get any more half-naked kilt pics?”

Noah laughs so hard that his stomach aches with it. “I don’t know, do you want any?”


	5. The Great Miserable Buffoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Willow-Mae, the OG Ebil Enabler of all things Mako/Neph. Which should clue one in that this chapter is M/N.

“You great buffoon! Why in the names of all the saints would you attempt to keep up with me Uncle Murphy, then? It’s tea and dry toast for you this morning, and possibly into this afternoon, too.”

There’s an army of mad leprechauns doing an Irish step dance in the space in his skull where his brain used to reside before it was pickled to death by a gallon of Guinness last night. His mouth tastes like the Sonoran Desert, scorpions and lizards and all, and Noah is pretty sure that if he attempts to move his limbs, they might fall off. Had it been any other person than Mary Kathleen talking to him and breaking the silence of the room, he might have cussed them out. Or at least made plans to do so sometime in the near future once the room stopped spinning. 

“Your Uncle Murphy was the one who kept refilling my cup! I wasn’t trying to start anything with him! Does he hate Americans or something? I mean, we are kind of a bunch of assholes, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t personally do anything to him.”

Mary Kathleen tsks at him, but sets down the tray of toast and tea on the nightstand by his bed. Noah is not above admiring the glimpse down her shirt as she bends over. He might be suffering the Hangover From Hell, but the day he couldn’t find the wherewithal to appreciate Mary Kathleen’s incredibly fabulous boobs, he’d have to be blind, dying or both.

Not that he thought of her in some sort of sleazy, disrespectful, sexual object type of way. And certainly not anything he’d admit to, aloud. Mary Kathleen was a friend– they’d kept in touch since meeting each other at her graduation two years ago– and besides, he wasn’t going to discount the fact that she could quite possibly kick his ass. Or at least make his life a complete living hell. Nor was he about to make things awkward, particularly on her home turf.

It’s his first time in Ireland and certainly it’s a pretty big departure from America. Mary Kathleen’s family comes from a tiny village that looks like something out of a postcard, and just the other day, they were stuck behind the local idea of a traffic jam– a flock of sheep taking their sweet time to cross the road. The land is a bit hilly, but lush and green, with a great deal more rain than he was accustomed to. But he could hardly complain. Not when it never came close to the downright dangerous temperatures of a sweltering Arizona summer, and especially not to Mary Kathleen’s exceptionally friendly family.

She’d told him, perhaps a year ago, that she’d lost both parents in her teens to a plane crash, and that she’d been taken in by an aunt and uncle afterwards, who’d lived in London at the time. They’d since moved back to Ireland after Uncle Murphy had retired, and though the sleepy little village of her youth certainly offered less by way of employment opportunities, there was no other place she’d rather be in the summers between school terms.

And so, as her friend, and as Zack’s unofficial babysitter, here he was. At least, that is to say, he got Zack safely into the UK and dropped him off into the competent hands of Amy, then embarked upon this little detour. And though he hadn’t exactly done anything super exciting thus far, it was worth it just to see this side of Mary Kathleen’s life, in her natural habitat, as it were.

He was never going to spend an evening at the pub with Uncle Murphy again, however. Everything that people said about the Irish and their alcohol tolerance was true.

About two hours later, Noah is roughly human again, after about four slices of dry toast, three cups of tea and two cat naps. He blearily makes his way towards the direction of the bathroom, which is tiny and adorable and had lace curtains on the windows, but also a shower about the size of a shoebox. The water pressure leaves something to be desired, but at least it does get good and hot. He sweats out the last little bit of alcohol left in his system, gets dressed, and wanders outside in search of his elusive hostess.

He finds her– or at least a pair of very long and shapely legs that definitely look like hers– sticking out from underneath a rusted, ancient jalopy of a car in a shade of brown-green usually associated with bird droppings or guacamole past its prime. The car is parked in a neighbour’s yard, and the neighbour in question seems to be a fairly ancient man wearing a sweater and a cap, who calls out when he sees Noah approaching.

“Yer Yank’s here, Mary Kathleen, and sure and he’s looking a lot more lively now than last night.”

“Me Yank’s a great buffoon who can’t handle his drink, but at least he conducts himself well enough when he’s half-pissed. I remember the time when Fergus McLean ran bare-arsed through the village singing ‘Whiskey In The Jar’, and if he wasn’t a walking advert for the evils of over-indulgence, I’m sure I can’t think of a one who’d suit it better.” Mary Kathleen, butt wiggling in her well-worn jeans, shimmies out from underneath the fugly car, a streak of black grease on one cheek, and grins up at him from her prone position on the ground. “I’m changing the oil of Flynn Malone’s car for him. He’ll be giving me some fresh eggs and a loaf of his wife’s soda bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, and perhaps if he’s feeling particularly generous and kindly, a pot of fresh butter as well, for none make better bread and sweeter butter than our Bridget Malone, aye?”

“‘Tis why I married her, to be sure,” Flynn Malone says agreeably, even as he gives Noah an unmistakable side-eye. “Now, my Bridget’s Da was fit to string me up by the bollocks, he was, when he caught me singing for her at her window in the moonlight before we were married. Our Mary Kathleen’s quite the prize herself, and I’d be happy to stand in for her Da if a lad comes sniffling after her and doesn’t do right by her.”

“I’m pretty sure if I did anything untoward in her presence, let alone directed at her, Mary Kathleen’s completely capable of kicking my ass herself,” Noah remarks in as polite a tone as he can muster, considering the conversation topic. “Therefore, I’m not going to try anything funny. I want to live.”

“Oy, yer smarter than ye look,” Flynn Malone guffaws as Mary Kathleen ducks back under the car to finish up. “We had our doubts. A body who makes a living getting pictures taken of his naked chest doesn’t always have a great deal going on upstairs.”

“The Yank’s working on his post-graduate in Physics at his Uni, and I’d thank you to be nice to my company, Flynn Malone.” Mary Kathleen reappears out from underneath that car. “Don’t be troubling him too much, or I’ll be tying a knot in your fuel line.”

Mary Kathleen wipes her hands and face clean with a damp towel, and Flynn Malone hands her a covered wicker basket full of the agreed-upon bread and eggs and butter, and after bidding her neighbour farewell, she and Noah head back to the house of her Uncle and Aunt.

“So, you never answered my question.” Noah carefully steers clear of any implications of his intentions towards Mary Kathleen. Not that they’re dishonourable, per se, but why bring a beautiful friendship into an awkward and potentially disastrous direction? Mary Kathleen, he knew, would never consider getting on a plane to even visit the United States, let alone move over there. “Do people here hate Americans, or do they just enjoy messing with me? I mean, I’m not mad. Just kind of curious.”

“Oh, you’re not from around here, and moreover you’re a male non-relative visiting my home. This part of Ireland is still quite traditional with things, so me neighbours probably want to make sure you’re not here to shag me and whistle off on your merry way, leaving me pregnant and unwed.” Noah’s eyes go wide at the last part of her explanation, and to his chagrin, Mary Kathleen blithely misinterprets his expression. “Not to fret, lad. I know you’ve no interest in such a matter. You’re quite safe from the parson’s trap. In the day and age of Flynn Malone, a man and a woman could scarce smile at each other without threats of the Banns being read, but I’m expecting naught from you of that sort.”

“Sure. I’m safe with you. Just not with any other number of people who’d like to see me miserable. Sounds good.”

“Maybe you should improve your constitution before we visit the pub again.” Mary Kathleen smirks up at him. “At least you no longer look like you’re fit to go to the Devil. You’re not quite to shirtless kilt standards, yet, but perhaps a nice walk in the fresh air will help you.”

“As long as I don’t step in any more cow shit.”

“I make no promises. You should have been more careful and watched your step.”

Noah says nothing about the fact that he’d been distracted staring at the freckles on her nose, and the glint of gold in her green eyes, and the way her t-shirt clung to her in a way white cotton had no business doing to anyone at any time, and follows her down the lane. He’d perhaps die in Ireland, but at least he’d die happy.


	6. The Chaotic Evil Professor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally dedicated to our fearless minibang leader, Coppercrane2. Follows the last two R/J ficbits.

That word would get out about his impromptu trip to New York City he totally expected. For all it was a huge and fairly anonymous college campus, the faculty in the science departments tended to be a tight-knit group, sharing war stories about uppity pre-meds and abysmally disaffected senior-year burnouts alike. But he had not expected one of his work friends to make it a point to pick him up from LAX with the most obnoxious, knowing smirk ever. Charlotte Rhys-Jones was a genius in the zoology department and a reputed holy terror to her PhD students, but she typically left Jude out of it.

Not today, though.

“Why are you looking at me like that? I promise you, I did not get up to any trouble while in New York. I even managed to finish all those lab reports, although I’d really prefer that students stop taking my class to fulfill a science credit requirement. A few of those poor kids are really playing into the stereotypes about jocks and their academic prowess.

“Well, definitely don’t send them my way, either! Remember the shit that went down three years ago with the football players and the penguins? Not that they’d try that again, I don’t think. Penguins are fucking evil and even the meatheads know that by now.” Charlotte eyes him beadily over the rim of her glasses. “So. The girl. Tell Charlie all. I took the liberty of checking out her LinkedIn. She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

“YOU are also evil, and chaotic, and a stalker, and scarier than even your penguins. But yeah, she’s pretty.” Beautiful, if he were to be completely honest. “Does it matter? She kind of lives on the opposite coast to us and doesn’t have any reason to move. I dropped off her bag, she returned me mine, and we wrapped things up neatly with a drink at a bar before I flew back here.”

“Uh-huh.” Charlotte drags the last part of that word into almost three syllables.

“She texted me to thank me for bringing her bag back and to say she was glad I made it back here safely. Why am I getting the third degree? I feel vaguely like a a seventeen-year-old kid explaining to the parents of his prom date that he’ll have their daughter home promptly at curfew. I’m pretty sure that both Raven and I are past that age in our lives.”

“Friendly enough to be on a first-name basis with her, are we now? I suppose it would be odd if she were to call you Professor Huntley. She’s a step up from the sorority chick co-eds that you encounter here and there between the actual students who mean to learn a thing or two from your classes.”

“She’s definitely not like the students. Far too decisive and self-sufficient to be any of our students, actually.” Jude isn’t quite sure of Raven’s exact age, but pegs her for mid-twenties, perhaps a few years younger than himself. At that age, he’d been a hapless grad student still, at the mercy of his academic advisors and the powers that be in charge of his student loans. Her… competence, for lack of a better term, is slightly intimidating. And yet…

“Do you intend on keeping in touch with the lovely and self-sufficient Miss Fletcher of Elite Models, New York City?” Charlotte is not one to beat about the bush. “It would do you very well to make friends every once in a while. Have someone to talk to when you need a sounding board or some advice.”

“Don’t I have you for that, Charlie?”

“Sure, but our conversations have an unfortunate tendency to degenerate into rants about rude students, idiotic deans, evil penguins, or all of the above. You could stand to discuss a few new topics. Keep your mind sharp and all that. Plus, I’m not likely to inspire you to travel cross-country with a goofy smile on your face. You also attempted to deflect my question with another question as opposed to actually answering it, and that says it all, doesn’t it?”

“Have you ever considered being a law school professor instead? I think you’d be _phenomenal_.”

“I’m sure I would be, but then I’d be trading penguins for lawyers-to-be. At least the first category has the decency to be quietly evil as opposed to the obnoxious variety of evil that never shuts up and enjoys arguing with you whenever you say anything at all. You should invite your Raven out for a drink, maybe some tacos, next time she’s in LA. Return the favour, you know.”

Charlie continues on this vein until she drops Jude off at his apartment, and perhaps it’s her intention that he turn his thoughts towards Raven, thousands of miles away. It’d be pretty late now, in New York City, but he texts her before he can talk himself out of it. 

“I’m glad you don’t hate me for the bag mishap. Margaritas next time you’re here in LA, my treat?”

To his surprise, she texts back within minutes. “That’d be great. A margarita sounds amazing right now. Been in meetings all day with the people at Vogue. Anna Wintour’s minions eat and drink what she does and it all sucks!!!!!”

He finds himself laughing, charmed by her refreshing honesty, and texts her back to inquire about her meetings with the designers in negotiations for working with Morgan Austen, asking about her day. She replies, asks him about his, and before he knows it, it’s full dark outside, which means that on the East Coast, it must be well after midnight.

“Am I keeping you up? If I am, I’m sorry. Go to sleep.”

He doesn’t expect her to respond back, but her text comes through a minute later.

“I didn’t mind. it’s late though. Talk to you tomorrow?”

He tells himself it’s lame to text her a wave and a smiley face emoji, but does it anyway. There isn’t exactly a precedent for how to deal with the likes of Raven Fletcher, after all, and he eventually turns in for the night, fairly sure it’d be the end of it.

But he wakes up in the middle of the night to a text notification. Morning rush-hour, Eastern Standard Time. Raven texted him a pithy comment about her morning commute on the subway.

It’s nothing, really. But he texts her back, bleary-eyed and sleepy. And turns up on campus with a bit of lightness to his step and a smile on his face.

Charlie takes one long look at him and walks away, smirking and humming something that sounds suspiciously like the Wedding March under her breath. She is, of course, teasing him on the basis of their long professional friendship.

Jude, however, texts Raven again during lunch, laughs at her witticisms about some designer or another’s outlandish winter-season line, shares an anecdote about a small lab mishap. Neither of them, he knows, has more than the faintest inkling of what the other person is talking about. He really could care less about fashion.

But talking to Raven, about any topic at all, was wonderful. Charlie would call him smitten, probably.

He couldn’t even be mad about it.


	7. The Distance Between Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to all my R/J peeps. Follows the other R/J bits, but happens, obviously, before Magari the actual fic does (unlike the M/N bits, which happen after, or the M/K piece, which happens at the same time). Rated PG13 for sexytimes.

They’d struck up something of a friendship– perhaps a flirtatious correspondence, if one wanted to be completely accurate– after the messenger bag snafu at LAX and his impromptu visit to Manhattan. It had seemed the right thing to do to invite her for drinks and a tour of LA the next time she’d been in town. They’d had margaritas and taco truck tacos and walked through the Huntington in the afternoon, Raven looking impossibly pretty standing on the bridge of the Japanese garden, her silky black hair loose and flowing in the breeze. Then he’d in turn looked her up when he was in New York City again for a work summit, and they’d gone together to a Broadway show– West Side Story. They’d had dinner together– not at some fancy restaurant, but a hole-in-the-wall deli, and if Raven had made an incongruous picture in her sleek black dress and stiletto heels, wiping mustard off her mouth with scratchy napkins, Jude had found it endearing and rather adorable, and that’s when he knew he was truly in trouble.

She’d called him a cab back to his hotel, and on an impulse, he’d kissed her right as the car had been pulling up. Just a moment, little more than a peck on a mouth that tasted like Sprite and expensive lipstick, and he’d felt the little gasp and sigh against his own mouth before her lips pressed back against his, but there wasn’t time to say more than a quick “Good night” before the cabbie had honked, impatiently waiting for him to get on. He’d passed a slightly sleepless night wondering if it had been the wrong thing to do, especially considering the sheer impracticality of entering into anything more than a casual friendship with a woman whose life was a whole three time zones away from his own. Jude was not a flirt or a ladies’ man by any definition of the word, and certainly, Raven was not the type of woman one dallied with. 

But she’d shocked him two days later, when it was time for him to leave and head back to LA, and she’d popped up at his hotel just as he was checking out of his room, with two Starbucks cups and a to-go bag from a bagel place. She’d been in a hurry– there was some type of meeting with some landlord/building super or another, to set up an apartment for some fresh-out-of-the-backwoods-boonies model or another who’d just relocated to the big city from Small Town USA all of a week ago– but she’d claimed that he was on her way, anyway, and she was so almost-defensive about the sweet gesture of bringing him breakfast and sending him off that he’d plucked both coffee and bagels out of her hands, set it perhaps-rudely on the concierge desk, and hugged her for perhaps too long before kissing her, again. 

“I’ll call you when I get to LA,” he’d told her in a rush when he’d finally pulled back, heart stuttering a bit as he watched her thick, sooty eyelashes flicker slowly as her eyes opened. “I’ll miss you.”

“Yeah. Have a good flight. I– I’ll miss you too.” That last bit was tacked on at the end just as he finally found the wherewithal to get his bags and the bagel and coffee, and even before his plane boarded, he knew he’d be counting down the days until one of them had a reason to fly across the country again. 

That had been about eight months ago, and bless Raven’s contract with the very-famous, very still-not-eighteen Morgan Austen, because there had been many flights to LA, and that flirtatious correspondence had turned into something very akin to a long-distance relationship. He’d wake up to her voice at an indecent hour of the morning, and she’d fall asleep to his, sometime still fairly early to him at night. She no longer cared about facetiming him at inopportune times, and he certainly didn’t think her any less beautiful in a ratty old Columbia University hoodie and yoga pants and no makeup than her in expensive eveningwear, rubies glowing against the sleek darkness of her hair. The first night he’d stayed over at her place, she’d fallen asleep with her feet in his lap on the couch during the tail end of an episode of The Office, and he’d carried her to bed, both of them still fully dressed but for their shoes and jackets. He’d woken up in the middle of the night to her fingers tracing over his skin and sought out her mouth on feeling alone, before even opening his eyes. The next morning, they’d shared a very leisurely shower, where he’d taken his time washing every inch of her hair before she’d tackled him. 

The distance wasn’t something they could truly ignore, however, the longer they were together. Raven’s career was thriving, as was his, and neither of them could sensibly be expected to move cross-country and make a completely fresh start. 

Fall in LA is undoubtedly less picturesque than out on the East Coast, with its leaves changing colours and crisp mornings edged with frost, its high winds and cinnamon-and-nutmeg-scented coffee and pastries, but Jude doesn’t lack for work and other related distractions. He’s up for tenure review at the college that year, and there’s the whole process of putting together the tenure dossier and bringing the completed body of his work to the committee and deans. UCLA is no different from most large universities of its ilk– professors are either awarded tenure after a certain number of years and an evaluated body of work has been produced, or terminated from employment. It is in the midst of this term of flux that a hush seems to fall over the very halls of his building, unusual indeed for this time of day.

Then he hears it– the _click-clack_ of Louboutins against the floors, and he peers out of his office door to see his sassy and beautiful New Yorker striding down the hallway like she owns the place, wearing a prim little skirt suit the same silky black as her sleekly-pinned hair. She smiles when she sees him, and he can all but hear the cluster of goggling chemistry majors left in her wake sigh in collective half-terrified awe. 

“Well, this is a surprise. I didn’t know you were coming here.” 

She reaches him, and as though she cares not a jot that there are others watching them, puts her hands on his face, presses her warm red mouth to his in greeting for a moment before pulling away. “I wanted to surprise you, I guess.”

There was more than that, just from the solemnity in her dark violet eyes. He lets her into his office, and shuts the door behind her back. He smiles, brushes a gentle fingertip over the slope of one smooth cheek. “You probably just cemented my reputation in this department as a badass once and for all. Not to mention, you’ve probably given hope to more than one student in these parts that the geeky science nerd can, in fact, someday have a chance with the beautiful woman.” He dips his head, kisses her again, gently. “You look beautiful. Beautiful and serious. What brings you here?”

“It’s Morgan’s birthday tomorrow. She’s turning eighteen. I was invited.” 

Raven doesn’t state the implications of that– they’re pretty obvious now, after all these months being involved in her life. Morgan Austen will no longer be a minor, and therefore, if the supermodel decides to do the sensible thing and move out to New York for work, Raven, as her agent, would have no more reason to continuously fly out to LA. She would be able to concentrate her workload once again on her home turf, the city she’d known all her life. 

“I’m up for tenure review this year.” It’s apropos of nothing, really, but perhaps a part of him knows that they’re at a crossroads, and both of them could go in any direction. It would, indeed, be easier to separate now, do the sensible thing and stay to their respective cities and lives. But he can’t bring himself to draw away from her, and when she smiles– a rare, real smile, not the polite one meant for company– he can’t help but smile back. No matter what that means for them, she’s happy for him. 

“You’ll get it. You’re too damn smart not to.”

“If I do, though, I’d pretty much have to stay here. And you–…”

“I’ll be happy for you. Because I love you, Jude Huntley. And it’s the best thing for you.” 

Her words are brave and steadily spoken, but there’s a bead of moisture on her eyelashes, making her mascara seem even blacker than usual, and he feels his heart skip a beat in his chest even as he pulls her close. She’s a small woman, really, though her presence has the power to fill a room. But in his arms, her dark head tucked against the crook of his neck, those slim legs of hers leaned against the sturdy surface of his desk, she feels delicate, infinitely precious. Her fingers twine around the length of his tie, tugging him down just enough, and her sparkling eyes meet his. 

“Don’t you _dare_ do anything that isn’t right for you, all right? I will love you no matter where we are.”

“I love you, too. More than a job or a city. I hope you knew that already.”

“Shut up.” The fingers tugging on his tie now pick nimbly at their knot, and soon after, go to work on his buttons. His own hands find purchase on the curves of her hips, and a moment later, she’s seated on that desk with him standing between her legs, and the look she shoots up at him through that dark forest of lashes is sultry and, to his gratification, no longer sad. “Is there anything important on this desk that I need to be worried about?”

There are a number of his academic papers for the tenure dossier he’d been compiling, but he sweeps that aside carelessly onto a nearby chair. “Just you, love. Only you.”

It’s an indeterminate amount of time later that she leaves his office, almost looking as spic-and-span as she did when she’d come in, except her lipstick is smudged and her hair is loose and a little wild as it spills down her back. Neither of them are any closer to an answer to the unspoken dilemma than before, but he feels a bit better about the future. Whatever comes might prove incredibly difficult for a couple to weather, but he thought that, perhaps, they’d be the two people who’d prove that statistic wrong.

“Ahem. Extra credit assignment, Professor?” 

Jude almost jumps out of his skin at Charlotte’s familiar voice drawling at him from across the hall. There’s almost certainly a smudge of lipstick on his collar, and he can’t be completely certain that his buttons are correctly aligned. “Umm…”

“These situations are usually found in bad pornos featuring actresses wearing short pleated plaid skirts, aren’t they? I could make a pun about your lady being well ahead of the curve. But perhaps it’s a good thing I figured out what was holding you up just before I knocked on your door, because you certainly wouldn’t have heard the banging over your exertions banging on something else altogether.”

“You, Professor Charlotte Rhys-Jones, are terrifying and evil, and I would never want to make an enemy of you.”

“Well, of course not. Why would you ever do something so foolish? I am a small and deadly commander of a diabolical penguin army. What did your girl come here for, aside from office-hours private tutoring?”

Jude is fairly sure that he’s blushing and can’t quite meet his colleague’s eyes, though he knows that she’d be sympathetic, all jokes aside. “She’s here in town because Morgan Austen is turning eighteen and invited her for the birthday party. Now that her celebrity client is no longer a minor, she’ll probably not have as many opportunities to come out this way.”

“Oh, God. She didn’t come out here to break up with you, did she? Because I think all the respect I gained for her not only walking in those ice picks but for getting you to partake in office desk shenanigans will be lost.”

“No. But I don’t know if we will have as many opportunities to be together as before.” Jude manages a self-deprecating smile. “I could always give up on tenure and move out east. There are probably schools out there that need Chemistry professors.”

“You could, but I’d hate you, and she’d hate herself, if you did that.” Charlotte says bluntly. “Weirdly, I have faith that you two might make this weird long-distance relationship of yours work out. There are frequent flier miles for these sorts of things. And the internet. People have done this since the Pony Express days, so you two should be fine. Plus, who knows what might happen? There could always be another Morgan Austen type out here somewhere just waiting for her. Do I get to be your Best Woman at the wedding?”

“I don’t know. You might have to escort the original Morgan Austen down the aisle.”

“No problem, and I don’t see you denying that there will be a wedding. Anyway, did you see that memo from the Dean that got sent yesterday?”

The conversation turns to work, and Jude sets thoughts of Raven aside for the time being.

She’d look as stunning in flowy white lace as black pinstriped linen, though.


End file.
